


You Can't Go Home Again

by Telaryn



Series: The Hero and The Bad Boy [6]
Category: Avengers/Leverage, Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Comrades in Arms, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gunshot Wounds, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Near Death Experience, Past Abuse, Rescue, Team, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl from Natasha's past is determined to revive the Soviet Red Room project - using the Avengers' greatest weapon to achieve her goal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Little Side Trip Wasn't My Idea

**Author's Note:**

> Biggest thanks to [](http://whiskyinmind.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**whiskyinmind**](http://whiskyinmind.dreamwidth.org/) for the amazing artwork (seriously - go! comment!). After that, thanks to [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=ishilde)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=ishilde)**ishilde** \- both for her help in putting together the mix, and for being the biggest fan this weird little never-should-have-happened pairing could have ever hoped for.
> 
>  **Link to art:** [Here.](http://whiskyinmind.livejournal.com/1024913.html)  
> 

  
“I’d just like to note for the record that this little side trip wasn’t _my_ idea.” Quinn finished what he’d been doing and returned to the window on the opposite side of the abandoned one room shack. “ _I_ signed on for a mission into the Republic of Georgia.”

Nat sighted down the barrel of her Glock and fired; a hundred yards away, shrouded by the early morning mists, a figure dropped to the ground. She braced for return fire, but again nothing came at them. _What the hell are they waiting for?_

“This is looking really fucking personal, Tash.” Like Clint, Quinn tended to babble when his adrenaline was up. “What’s the play?”

She had a handful of possible scenarios in her head. The problem was, none of them gave anything close to a guarantee of the two of them getting home reasonably intact. “I’ll draw their fire,” she said finally, her mind racing to put possible pieces together. “Give you a chance to get to Eliot and bring back reinforcements.”

“That only works if it’s you they’re after,” Quinn countered.

Natasha snorted softly. “You have enemies in southeastern Russia these days?” When Quinn didn’t answer, she exhaled softly and began preparing herself to attack. “I thought as much.”

_Volgograd._

_Petrovitch._

This was as personal as it got.  
**************************  
Tony Stark had learned at a very early age that battles fought in the boardroom tended to be much worse than those played out on a proper battlefield. As a result, he tended to avoid them whenever possible.

When it wasn’t possible to avoid them, he fought fast and hard, and the question of losing never entered his mind.

Sometime in the previous eight hours, Bruce Banner had gone missing from the heart of Stark Industries main research facility. There was no indication he’d left under his own power, or was taken away by “forces unknown” – he had simply vanished in the middle of a sensitive experiment from under the watchful eye of JARVIS and half a dozen of the best security cameras money could buy. Tony’s own people had the scene locked down within minutes, but Banner disappearing meant the Hulk was gone, and anything involving the Hulk was going to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. to the party.

By the time Director Fury strode into the executive conference room however, any meaningful arguments were over, and the balance of the Avengers had assembled, ready to back Tony’s determination to take the lead on any and all search and rescue efforts. “He’s ours to find,” Cap had declared as he squared off with Fury in a voice that would tolerate no argument. “Not yours.”

No one who watched the confrontation was sure if Fury backed down because he didn’t want to publicly cross swords with Captain America, or because he was pleased to see his pet project finally behaving as an actual team. “You will have the full resources of the organization to draw on,” was all he would say in the end. “Keep me in the loop.”

Clint was pretty sure the only reason Tony didn’t let the director know exactly what he thought of the “full resources of S.H.I.E.L.D.” was because he was struck speechless by the fact that Fury had virtually handed him the victory without a fight.

Once they were free to pursue the problem their own way, Cap had assigned Hawkeye to work with Tony’s head of security, reviewing the monitors that had been covering the lab at the time Bruce had gone missing. “JARVIS will let you know if he finds anything screwy in the tapes themselves,” Tony had said, while Clint was shaking hands with the ex-Green Beret.

Three levels up, and half-way down the corridor leading to the director’s office, Barton’s phone rang.

His personal phone.

Signaling the security director to go on without him, Clint stopped and checked the caller ID out of habit. _Quinn._ “Not a good time, grasshopper,” he said, unable to keep from smiling anyway as he answered the phone. “In the middle of something.”

“Quinn’s missing, Clint.”

“Eliot?” Adrenaline spiked through Clint as he registered who was on the other end of the phone and what he was saying. “What happened? How did you get his phone?”

Spencer’s voice was a low, rough growl. “Were you aware we were helping Nat off book?”

He hadn’t been, but Clint had to admit to himself that he wasn’t surprised. Black Widow had been tasked by Director Fury with shutting down a nuclear arms pipeline between one of the larger decommissioned Soviet bases and a separatist group in the Republic of Georgia. Quinn had a great deal of experience with the underworld in that section of the globe; Clint knew that most of the times he had crossed paths with Nat in the past had been in Russia or one of the old Soviet satellite nations.

Eliot would have gone along to provide them with additional back-up, in case something went wrong. _Which it obviously has._

“Nat’s two days overdue on reporting back,” Clint admitted finally. Which ordinarily wasn’t cause for alarm, but if Eliot was convinced something had happened to them… He swore softly. The others weren’t going to appreciate him bailing out on finding Bruce after making such a definitive and united stand against S.H.I.E.L.D’s interference. This was one of those cases where he was definitely feeling the pull of his divided loyalties. “Eliot, I am up to my ass in Avengers crap right now – where are you?”

“Quinn’s last confirmed location,” the hitter answered. “A forest across the river south of Volgograd.” He paused. “Russia.”

“Yeah,” Clint said, his stomach doing a slow, queasy flip. “I know exactly where it is.”  
******************  
 _”You are the Black Widow, children. You are nobody’s victim.”_

Petrovitch’s words were ringing in her ears as Natasha slowly regained consciousness, mocking the ease with which she and Quinn had been taken. Whoever had surrounded them at the farmhouse hadn’t needed to fight back; all they’d needed to do was wait long enough for their prey to panic before firing the cannisters of sleeping gas that had eventually done the work for them.

“Son of a bitch.”

 _Quinn._ Nat opened her eyes and slowly turned her head towards the sound of his voice. The hitter was sitting on the edge of a cot – his face buried in his hands.

“They’ll be bringing us dinner soon. You’ll want as much water as you can tolerate.” _That_ voice was so out of place it devastated Natasha’s resolve to remain casual about her recovery progress. Rolling smoothly into a sitting position, she pivoted to face Dr. Bruce Banner. Her Avengers teammate was sitting on the floor as well, his back against the wall opposite her.

“You’re supposed to be in New York,” she said, her voice rasping slightly. Swallowing hard, she tried again. “What’s going on?”

Banner’s weathered face was firmly set in its default expression of “sarcastically neutral”. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “Only thing I can say for the hospitality is that the meals are regular.”

Quinn raised his head. Natasha was mildly gratified to see that he looked like she felt inside. “Any idea how long we’ve been out?”

“They brought you in about six hours ago, by my best guess,” the doctor said.

“Figured we were gassed another four hours before that,” Nat said, leaning her head back against the wall in an almost perfect mirror of Bruce’s pose. “Possibly as much as six.” Internally her mind was racing, putting what fragments of memory she’d managed to cling to together and trying to get a handle on who had taken them and why?

She hadn’t been roughly handled, which was a miracle in and of itself considering she’d executed at least six of their people before the ambush. Quinn looked to be in a similar state – what bruises Nat could see were from before the attack – and that told her whoever was behind this was efficient, professional, and had other plans for them yet to be revealed.

 _You, though._ Her eyes fell on Bruce again, and her brow furrowed slightly in confusion.

Banner smiled slightly. “Don’t worry. I don’t know why they took me either.”  
************************  
Cap, Tony and Clint reconvened in the main conference room at midday for a quick lunch and a chance to bring each other up to speed. Tony spent most of the time focused on his smart phone – Cap nudged him twice before he would even acknowledge a sandwich and soda had been set on the table in front of him.

“And what’s got you so distracted?” Steve asked, settling into his own chair with a small sigh.

Clint blinked, startled to realize Rogers was talking to him. “You remember Quinn?” Cap nodded, and Tony snorted softly, not bothering to look up. Clint shuddered, all the worries he’d successfully held at bay for the previous several hours crowding close around him again. “He and another associate of ours were helping Nat with her mission.”

“Fury was okay with that?” Cap asked, momentarily confused. Tony wadded up a napkin and threw it at him, while Clint raised an eyebrow. “Ah. Got it. Go on.”

“Eliot called right after I left you guys to go to security.” He swore inwardly at the tremor in his voice, and exhaled sharply – trying to keep it together. “Quinn’s gone missing from deep inside Russia. South of Volgograd.”

That caught Tony’s attention. “What about Agent Romanoff?”

Clint shrugged. “Officially two days overdue. Ordinarily not cause for concern, but with Quinn disappearing that far away from their last reported location…”

“South of Volgograd,” Tony repeated. Clint wondered why he was surprised that Stark knew the significance of the former Stalingrad.

“Petrovitch was put down years ago,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s insane Tony. Natasha helped shut the place down herself.”

“I don’t care if she salted the earth it’s too big a coincidence to be anything else.”

“What are we talking about?” Steve asked, looking from one to the other. “What’s in Volgograd, and what does it have to do with Natasha?”

Clint studied the table in front of him, trying to sort the nightmare of Nat’s past into something he could feed to somebody who’d missed the entire Cold War. “Natasha’s from Volgograd,” he said finally. “It’s where she was recruited into the Black Widow program.”  
***********************  
 _Yelena Belova._ She had been a child when the Red Room program was shut down, one of Petrovitch’s most promising recruits.

Now she was anything but. “On your feet Natashka.”

Nat rolled her eyes up towards the lithe blonde in her crisp, close-fitting uniform. “As they say in America, ‘bite me’ Lenochka.”

The woman’s smile widened. “Very nice.” She signaled to one of the black clad men flanking her, and a moment later a Yargin PY was up and aimed through the bars at Quinn…who clearly didn’t appreciate the attention.

“You really don’t want to do that pal,” he said, his gaze flat and cold. His hands on his thighs had clenched into fists. “I don’t like people pointing guns in my direction.”

“Is this supposed to impress me into cooperating?” The disinterest came to hand naturally for her, even though inside Nat was screaming for Quinn not to do anything reckless.

“Your question is based on a false premise,” Yelena retorted. Half a dozen more weapons were leveled at them; Natasha finally scrambled to her feet and moved back towards Quinn. As soon as she was clear of the bars, one of the guards unlocked the cell door. “That I require your cooperation.” As calmly as if she were taking an evening stroll on a beach, Yelena walked into the cell and turned to face Bruce.

“Dr. Banner, if you would?”

“Yelena, what are you doing?” It was clear to Nat that Bruce was as surprised as any of them at being singled out.

Yelena pointedly ignored her, gesturing for Bruce to come with them. “Please Doctor,” she added. “No one needs to get hurt here.” Natasha wondered if she was the only one that heard the ‘yet’ hanging lazily in the dry air of the cell.

Bruce slowly got to his feet, using the movement to look past their captor at Natasha. Her stomach churned at the question in his eyes, but she had to give him an almost imperceptible nod. Summoning “the Other Guy” in an enclosed space like this wasn’t her first choice, but the longer they remained here the better the chance that something truly bad _was_ going to happen.

She tensed at the resignation in Banner’s eyes, ready to leap for Quinn and drag him to cover as soon as the change happened. Bruce shifted his attention from her to Yelena. “I’m sorry,” he said – and Nat could hear the genuine regret in his voice.

Silence fell across them for a long moment – Nat watched the anticipation in Bruce’s eyes, and saw when it bled away to a look of stunned confusion. _Fuck._

“Chemical inhibitors in your food Doctor,” Yelena said, her smile not having budged an inch off her coldly beautiful face. “We had to wait for them to take effect before we took you – but now I think you’ll find that showing us your other face is much harder than it used to be.” She gestured again. “Please.”

Bruce was so taken aback by the sudden turn of events that he allowed two of the guards to take him out of the cell without even offering a token resistance. Horrified, Nat watched him until he disappeared from view. _Okay, what now?_

When she pulled her attention back to what was going on in front of her, Yelena was squared off in front of her, looking impossibly pleased with herself. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have the antidote. The doctor just needs to be made to see the benefits of turning his particular talents to _my_ cause before I can in good conscience give it to him.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Nat told her, panic swelling inside her. “Yelena please – I’ll do whatever you want – just do not do this.” She saw Quinn tense to protest at the edge of her vision and prayed he would keep quiet. “Just tell me what you want and it’s yours, I swear!”

 _Now_ the smile vanished, to be replaced by a look of pure, bone-deep hate. “The word of a traitor means nothing to me. I told you Natasha that I did not require your cooperation.” She glanced significantly at Quinn before meeting Nat’s gaze again. “You and your little friend are merely meat for the beast.”  
***************************  
Intellectually Clint knew he should eat something, but laying out his concerns about Quinn and Nat had effectively destroyed his appetite.

Steve looked genuinely upset by the whole business. Clint was expecting overtures of sympathy, and the expected statements about how he wished there was some way they could look for Natasha and Quinn as well as Bruce, so he was confused when all Rogers said was, “You should have said something right off.”

Clint shrugged. “Figured Dr. Banner was a higher priority.”

Tony snorted. “You’re not thinking deviously enough, Legolas. The lovely Natasha is an Avenger as well – anything that applies to Bruce would logically apply to her.”

“It’s only been two days, Tony. Like I said – there’s probably a perfectly harmless explanation for all of this. Eliot will find them, and he’ll...” Clint let the words die in his throat unspoken. He couldn’t stop the itching at the back of his neck, the feeling in his gut that something _had_ gone seriously wrong, and his partner and his lover were in the thick of it.

Cap had come around the table; the big man gripped his arm, drawing his attention. “There is such a thing as being too tied to your duty you know,” he said gently.

“And if Captain America’s telling you that…” Tony interjected. “Seriously Barton – I’ve got an army of my own on this, and if it makes you feel better I promise we’ll contact Fury if it looks like we’re out of our depth.”

Clint was forced to concede the point. Until they had something more to go on, he wasn’t adding anything particularly critical to the search.

“Go find them,” Steve said. “Bring them home.”  
******************************  
It took Natasha several minutes before she felt comfortable looking at Quinn. “Go ahead.” She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the bars of their cell.

He’d shifted into a more comfortable position on his cot, bracing his back against the stone wall. “I’m brighter than I look, Tash. Didn’t quite follow what was going on between you and the doc there, but the rest of it isn’t hard to figure out.” He paused. “Is there actually a plan, or are we winging it?”

Natasha thought over their situation as quickly as she dared. “How sure are you of Eliot finding your phone?” Once the gravity of their situation had become clear, Quinn had activated the device’s GPS software and hidden it in the farmhouse. The hope was that if they moved Eliot directly to where they’d been captured he would stand a better chance of determining where they’d been taken.

Quinn hitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Somewhere between ninety and ninety-five percent. We’re far enough off mission spec that he isn’t going to wait too long before coming to find us.”

She exhaled sharply, rolling the information over in his mind. “Question is then, will he try something on his own, or will he be smart enough to raise the alarm back home?” She was reasonably sure what Quinn would have done had their positions been reversed, but Spencer was more of a cypher in that regard.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Quinn said, echoing her concerns. “He’s always had this weird maverick streak, but he’s also pretty sentimental. Comes down to whether he thinks it’s more important to spare Clint’s feelings, or have big enough guns in play to get the job done.”

Balancing the options in her mind, neither one presented as being more likely. “We wing it,” she said finally. “Look for an opening, and figure any outside support is a gift from the heavens.”

Quinn laughed. “I wasn’t aware you were religious.”

Natasha scowled at him; the comment had unexpectedly angered her. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jonah. You would do well to remember that.”

“Hey – I’m on your side sweetheart.” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Never figured you’d be going home again, huh?”

She couldn’t stop the shudder that rippled through her body. “This isn’t home,” she said, forcing her attention to stay on Quinn and away from the memories. “There were always whispers about people trying to continue Petrovitch’s work, but if S.H.I.E.L.D. looked into it in any detail, Fury didn’t want me involved.

Quinn’s easy smile faded a little around the edges. “Doesn’t trust you, huh?”

Now it was her turn to shrug. “No reason he should. The Red Room takes us young, Quinn – Yelena and I were children when Petrovitch brought us in. The best intentions in the world can’t ever completely shake training that starts that early.”  
**********************  
Tony had offered him the use of his corporate jet, but with everything that was potentially at stake Clint had retreated to what he knew. In this case, that meant reporting to the same Director Fury he’d just had a hand in defying and bringing him up to speed.

The imposing leather-clad figure listened quietly as Clint made his report, his fingers steepled in front of his chin. When Barton was finally finished, Fury lowered his hands to the desk and sighed. “I don’t ask a lot of questions anymore where you or Agent Romanoff are concerned. S.H.I.E.L.D. prefers to operate as a results-focused organization, and I know you at least are in the process of transitioning to full time Avenger status.” Clint opened his mouth to argue, but Fury held up a hand. “No. My turn to talk. Officially this is a reconnaissance mission. You will have authorized use of a jet, but no back-up, no support. Nothing that will draw undue notice to this situation, do you understand?”

Clint felt himself draw up even more fully to attention. “Yes sir.”

“Furthermore,” Fury continued, “in the event it seems Agent Romanoff has been compromised by the pull of old loyalties, I expect you to do your duty and make the _right_ call this time.”

His agreement to the terms had been automatic. Clint knew with a bone-deep certainty that Natasha would fight any attempts to drag her back into the Red Room to her last breath. And if she failed, or if by some ridiculous stretch of the imagination it turned out he was wrong about her, Clint knew he owed it to Nat as well as Fury to be the one to make things right.

 _And what about Quinn?_ Clint’s hands tightened involuntarily on the controls of the jet. Alone in the cockpit, he could admit to himself that he’d been holding back from the mercenary. They were spending more and more time together. The physical side of their relationship was progressing, and Clint was catching himself every so often wondering what Quinn would think about something, or looking forward to sharing a story with him the next time they had a chance to be alone together.

With all that, in his heart he knew he was still waiting for Quinn to betray him. He’d justified his fear as reasonable concern given how they’d come into each other’s lives, but Quinn had repeatedly gone over and above to prove that he’d changed, that he saw Clint as more than his victim now. _“You’re a bad influence on me you know.”_ Clint smiled remembering that afternoon – the last they’d spent together before Quinn had agreed to travel with Natasha.

They’d been having a picnic of sorts on top of the recently rebuilt Stark Tower. Quinn had finished eating and was half-sprawled on the grass, idly picking over the pile of fruit that lay between them. Clint had put his back against the parapet wall, arms resting on his drawn up knees – eyes almost closed as the warmth of the midday sun played across his face.

_”I can’t wait to hear your reasoning for that.”_

A fat grape had struck him right in the middle of his forehead then, and what could have been a conversation they’d probably needed to have had quickly devolved into a food fight which then ended up in a fairly intense make-out session. _I wish I’d let you finish,_ he thought, angrily brushing away the tears on his cheeks. _I wish I hadn’t been such a fucking coward…_

Alone in the cockpit, the idea that he might never be able to take it back, to make that moment right between them, was almost more than Clint could stand.


	2. This Little Side Trip Wasn't My Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl from Natasha's past is determined to revive the Soviet Red Room project - using the Avengers' greatest weapon to achieve her goal.

Three meals had passed since they’d last seen Bruce. While it was possible that Yelena was messing with their feeding schedule in order to disrupt their awareness of the passage of time, Nat’s own internal clock told her that it had been roughly forty-eight hours. _She wants the Hulk._ The knowledge, and all of its terrifying implications, refused to leave her.

Internally Bruce Banner was as strong a man as any Natasha had ever known. He had to be in order to keep what Tony called his “terrible privilege” in check. The problem was that the things that fed the Hulk – rage, pain and fear – were all things Yelena Belova was well versed in delivering to her victims. In high enough doses…well, Bruce Banner was only human, after all.

“That brain of yours really doesn’t ever stop, does it?” She turned to see that Quinn was watching her again. “You can sleep you know. It’s probably even a good idea. They obviously don’t care about us right now.”

She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but Nat obligingly sat next to him on the cell’s only cot. “You know that’s what they want you to think,” she said, inching back on the thin mattress until her back was solidly against the wall – arms resting on her drawn up knees. “What?” Something had flashed across Quinn’s expression, something unexpected.

His answering smile was half-grimace; he ducked his head and waved off her concern. “Nothing. It’s just…” He shuddered, blowing out a sharp breath to bring himself under control again. “You sit like him, did you know that?” He shrugged. “Or he sits like you. I guess I don’t really know either of you well enough to know who started it…”

The observation threw her. “I…I guess I don’t know either,” she admitted, slipping self-consciously into a cross-legged position. “They say it happens with partners, and we’ve been together a while.” She realized with a jolt that she wanted to continue the conversation. She wanted to ask him how things were going between him and Clint, whether they were working through the issues left over from their excessively unorthodox introduction to each other. _Has he even let you know how scared he is?_

They had to assume they were being monitored though – even if they weren’t Yelena’s top priority right now, she wasn’t a fool. Quinn seemed to have come to the same conclusion she had. “When we get out of here, you’re buying,” he said calmly. “We’ll get completely trashed and tell each other all our dirty little secrets.”

Nat smiled. “Like friends Jonah? Is that what we are?”

Quinn laughed softly. “Sad, isn’t it?”  
**************************  
By the time he reached the farmhouse, Eliot had plenty to report, but none of it was encouraging. “All things considered, I wish Fury _had_ authorized you some additional manpower.”

Clint closed his eyes briefly, shoving his feelings down behind those things that made him a soldier, a professional, and the best in the world at what he did. “After looking at all this,” he admitted when he could trust himself to speak again, “I pretty much agree with you.”

Eliot was standing on the far side of the room’s only table, his arms crossed over his chest. For a man supposedly unconnected to any sort of government or special interest group, he’d assembled an impressive amount of intelligence in a relatively short amount of time. “Don’t suppose you can use any of this to leverage some backup out of the son of a bitch?”

Clint shook his head. “This base you’ve identified is where the old Soviet Black Widow Ops program was housed. That makes it political as far as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s concerned.”

“Nat’s old bosses?” Eliot reached out a hand and Clint handed him the folder he’d been leafing through. “Quinn said the program was dead, that Nat herself helped bring it down.” He flipped through the documents. “You think somebody’s trying to use Nat to bring everything back on line?”

Clint sighed. “The important part of what you just said is that Nat was involved in bringing down the operation.” _I expect you to do your duty…_ Instinct held him back from sharing that part of his conversation with Eliot. The retrieval specialist didn’t need to know he was carrying a potential kill order on Natasha. _Again._

Eliot snorted softly. “Okay then. I’d say our best point of entry is here.” He pointed to the base’s southern gate.  
****************  
For one brief, heart-stopping moment as she followed Yelena’s men onto the observation deck Natasha lost her grip on reality. The space and its purpose were branded more deeply on her soul than almost anything else in her life. At least once a day she and her ‘sisters’ would be brought here to listen to Petrovitch lecture on their service to the Soviet Union, and the glorious purpose they would someday serve. Sometimes they would be called to bear witness to a new sister’s initiation into the program – the administration of the drugs that would steal her life and make her ready for training.

Other times would be when a sister was being disciplined. On those occasions the screams and pleas for mercy would echo in Natasha’s skull long after she’d had her dinner and gone to bed.

 _Some things really don’t change,_ she thought, trembling as she heard the screams rising up from the operating field. This voice was deeper though, and more recently familiar than the ones from her past. _No…_

Only one of their guards tried to stop her as she ran forward to the rail; Nat dropped him without breaking stride. She was dimly aware of Yelena holding the other guards off with an upraised hand, but most of her attention was for the operating field below, and the figure strapped to the chair in the middle of it. “Bruce,” she breathed, suddenly sick with the horror of it all.

Another scream split the air. “We gave him the antidote,” Yelena said calmly. “By now the new drugs and the electro-shock should have brought him around.”

 _She’s trying to bring on the change._ When Bruce chose to bring out the “other guy”, the Hulk could be reasoned with – his mind was clear, and any violence he caused was made with full knowledge and understanding of the consequences. When the change was forced on him… Natasha fought back the rising panic brought on by memory of an accident deep in the bowels of the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier and a race she’d barely escaped with her life.

Quinn joined her at the rail. “What the hell?” he muttered – clearly confused at the scene spread out below them.

Natasha tore her attention away from her teammate, looking to the woman who once upon a time she would have called her family. “Yelena, you have no idea what you’re doing. Please – listen to me. There is nothing in Petrovitch’s protocol that can handle the Hulk.”

She could remember being that proud, that sure of herself and the mission. _Was it really so long ago?_ Had joining S.H.I.E.L.D. changed her so much? “The Red Room is not a static thing, Natashka,” Yelena reminded her. “We have had the finest minds in the world to draw from over the years – what used to be the equivalent of surgery with a butter knife is now performed with the finest lasers and minimal long term damage to the operative.”

Bruce cried out again, body bowed and rigid against his restraints. _How is he holding off the change?_ Natasha marveled. She had a fair idea of what he was going through, and Banner’s level of control put everything she was capable of to shame.

“You’re going to kill him,” Quinn observed. His voice was neutral, but Nat didn’t miss how the skin across his knuckles whitened as he gripped the railing. “He’s a science geek – he’s not capable of withstanding what you’re pumping into him.”

It took Natasha a moment to remember that Quinn wasn’t privy to Bruce’s secret. He’d woven himself so seamlessly into Clint’s life that it was easy to forget sometimes that he wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. 

“He’s joking with me, yes?” Yelena had clearly made the same assumption. She drew Quinn’s eye. “You do not know about Dr. Banner?”

Quinn shrugged. “What’s to know? He works for Stark Industries. Something about gamma radiation– I’ve never paid attention.”

“He’s a mercenary, Yelena,” Natasha interjected. Belova’s delighted laughter overrode anything else she could have said.

“You are not one of Director Fury’s pets then?” Yelena reached out and caressed Natasha’s cheek; it took every ounce of Nat’s control not to slap the hand aside. “Not like my darling Natashka here?” The diminutive stung even more than it had the previous times it had been flung at her.

“Natasha Romanoff is nobody’s pet,” Quinn said – his voice cold, and his expression suddenly deadly enough that Nat felt Yelena tense against her skin. “Petrovitch couldn’t control her – Fury isn’t stupid enough to try.” He reached out and wrapped his hand around Yelena’s wrist – the answering sound of side arms and rifles being brought to bear on them suddenly filled the room.

“This Black Widow goes where she wants when she wants,” he continued, pulling her hand away from Natasha and pushing her back a step. “She isn’t some child who deserves your condescension or your contempt.”

An unfamiliar thread of panic flared through Natasha – she grabbed Quinn’s arm before he could continue forward. “Quinn no!”

He allowed her to pull him back, but his eyes never left Yelena’s. All the humor had left Belova’s expression, and Natasha wondered for a brief second if anger was going to drive her to give the order to gun them down where they stood. “Hanging around with Clint and Eliot has done you no favors,” Natasha hissed at Quinn. “You used to be smarter than this!”

Another pain-wracked scream from Bruce split the silence, and now she could hear hints of the Other Guy coming through.

She wasn’t the only one. Yelena’s anger had faded, to be replaced by something almost approaching pleasure. “Secure them,” she ordered. “Take them to the transport.” Natasha tightened her grip on Quinn as Yelena moved closer to them again. “Old game, Natashka, new rules.”

Natasha and Quinn were pulled apart then, their hands bound tightly behind them. Nat submitted to the rough handling without protest, and was relieved to see Quinn following her lead. Yelena’s use of the term “game” had a variety of possible meanings for Red Room operatives, none of them good.

 _You played them all, though,_ she reminded herself as they were hustled out of the command center and taken to a waiting truck. _Played and won._ The fact that she was here, able to worry about what kind of “new rules” Yelena might have carved onto their traditional training pursuits was proof of that.

“Some things never change.”

She blinked, startled out of her reverie by Quinn’s comment. “You’re right,” she snapped. “You’re still trying to impress me with that damned white knight routine of yours.”

His pale eyes locked with hers, and Nat could feel him willing her to understand. _It wasn’t me he was playing._ The realization hit her like a physical blow, and she very nearly laughed out loud. Quinn had been using what he knew about _her_ to gauge Yelena’s likely responses to different behaviors. “Almost had her too,” he murmured, clearly pleased with himself.

“Almost got us both killed you mean,” she snorted.

Quinn raised his eyebrows at that. “And why do I think that would have left us better off? I’ve seen the movies Tasha – I’ve got a pretty good idea what kind of ‘games’ you baby spiders used to play growing up.”

Nat sobered immediately. She wanted to be able to tell him he was wrong, but she knew Quinn well enough to know that he did understand exactly what they were facing and how bad it was likely to get for them. “The players are always given a fighting chance,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Petrovitch _wanted_ us to succeed – it was better for the program.”

“Petrovitch isn’t running this show,” Quinn interjected – a note of concern in his voice.

“He might as well be,” Natasha countered. “Yelena is a zealot – for all her talk about improvements to the program, every single change she’s made has been technological, something the old bastard would likely have implemented on his own.” She shook her head. “No, she will make this as traditional as possible, both for her own sake and because she believes it’s the only way to finish a traitor like me.”

Her stomach clenched as she realized on some level she still saw herself that way. She was a traitor to her family, and because she’d betrayed them, no one would ever fully accept her. _No one except Clint._ He’d always seen something in her nobody else had, and she would always love him for that.

“Nat.” She flinched, realizing her thoughts had started to drift. Quinn was looking at her now with open concern. “We’re going to get out of here – you believe that, right?”

“I have to. The games are as much a test of your psychological fortitude and cunning as your physical skills.” She drew in a shaky breath then, laughing a little. “Sorry – I just realized how much I’ve come to depend on having Barton around when things like this happen.”

Before Quinn could say anything, their truck lurched to a stop. Nat tensed – a moment later the tarp was lifted, and a full squadron of rifles and side arms were pointed through the opening at them. “Overkill guys,” she snorted. “There’s just the two of us in here. No secret weapons, no unexpected back-up.”

They were motioned out of the truck – Natasha complied immediately, Quinn at her heels. _Now is not the time to make any kind of play._ As soon as they reached the ground, they were dragged apart, and Nat’s suspicions about which of their training games this was going to be bloomed into full and horrified life. _The two of you are meat for the beast._

Yelena stepped between them and signaled to the guards. Natasha was prepared when three of the uniformed men shoved her to her knees, but she still struck the ground hard enough to painfully jar her spine. Fear and memory crowded close, tightening her throat against any word of warning she could have shouted.

Not that it would have done either of them any good. Quinn might have fought if he’d known in advance what was about to happen, but it wouldn’t have changed his fate. The first shot took him in the chest, half-spinning him against his guard. The second went lower and to the side, and Nat couldn’t suppress a small fear noise. _Gut shot._ At this distance she couldn’t tell the placement with any sort of accuracy, but in that zone it would be a matter of millimeters between survival and a certain death sentence.

Quinn went down hard, and the gunmen around him let him fall.

Yelena stepped in front of her momentarily blocking her view. Nat looked up at the blond, unable to disguise her hatred. “You know how this goes, or you should. The choice is yours – try to save your little champion and possibly doom you both, or do the smart thing and save yourself.” Her guns and rig were dropped in front of her, along with a bag that would contain bandages and enough alcohol to keep Quinn’s wounds from getting infected in at least the first hour. 

Natasha’s hands itched with the desire to pull one of her Glocks and put a bullet between Yelena’s eyes, but her own satisfaction had to take a back seat to practical concerns. Quinn was bleeding his life away into the dirt at the edge of her vision – the sooner Belova could be convinced to pull her forces back, the sooner Natasha would be able to assess how bad his injuries were.

“Do we get the traditional head start?” she asked, trying and largely failing to keep the tremor out of her voice. _Two minutes._ Two minutes to do what first aid she could in order to get Quinn on his feet, before all the gunmen Yelena had brought would be turned loose to hunt them.

Yelena smiled. “I will actually give you five minutes Natasha. Five minutes, and then you will be hunted by the latest and most powerful weapon in my arsenal.

Almost as if on cue a deep, terrifyingly familiar roar split the air. Something in the Black Widow’s soul curled up and died in response.  
*************************  
“Dammit,” Clint swore, looking at the party leaving the base by the same gate he and Eliot had intended to use as their point of entry. Whoever had taken Quinn and Nat also had the Hulk, and by the looks of things they fully intended to use him.

Eliot lowered his field glasses. “That wouldn’t happen to be the ‘Avengers crap’ you were up to your eyebrows in when I called, would it?”

 _They’re controlling him somehow._ Even as heavily bound and watched as he was, Bruce should have been able to shake every bit of it off with no effort whatsoever. “That would be exactly it,” he admitted. Reaching up, he activated the communicator at his shoulder – the one that once upon a time would have given him a direct line to Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. 

_Now…_ “Get him for me, JARVIS,” Clint said.

_”At once, Agent Barton.”_

There was a moment of silence, then Tony Stark’s voice was a comfortingly sarcastic drawl over the network. _“Don’t tell me – you’ve hit the jackpot. You’ve found Bruce and Natasha, and you’re calling to tell us you’re on your way home and want Chinese for dinner.”_

Barton ducked his head, briefly overcome with emotion. “Looks like yes to the first, no to the second,” he said.

 _“Really?”_ They heard some background noise and conversation, then Steve’s voice could be heard on the line.

_”Your friend’s disappearance? It was connected? Where are you?”_

Eliot reached out and grabbed his arm, drawing his attention back to the scene below. “Hold on Cap,” Clint said, shifting his focus to the Hulk and the men guarding him. Whatever they’d bound him with was being removed, and others in the group were jabbing at him with long sticks. They were obviously trying to anger him; Clint could see sparks in the distance. “Fuck. Fuck – no…” He was reaching for his bow, when Eliot grabbed his arm.

“Too many people,” Spencer growled. “Don’t be an idiot.”

 _”Talk to us Barton.”_ It was Tony again. _”What’s going on?”_

“They’re driving him into the woods,” Clint forced himself back into professional mode – reporting what he saw as if it didn’t touch him at all. “Thirty individuals, most of them armed with cattle prods.” 

_They’re turning him loose?”_ Rogers asked. _”That doesn’t make any sense.”_

Memory pulled at Clint – late night talks with Natasha over drinks, listening to her describe everything she remembered of her time in the Red Room. She’d refused to give S.H.I.E.L.D. any of the more intimate details of her experiences, keeping their focus on the strategic intel she could provide. Clint was the only one she trusted with the more personal things. “It makes sense if they’re sending him after somebody,” he breathed, his heart pounding with a sudden adrenaline spike. _Or two somebodies._

 _”It’s going to be at least four hours before we can reach you,”_ Tony said, and Clint could hear genuine concern in his voice now.

“Get here as fast as you can.”  
***************************  
She’d known it would be bad; Nat shoved down her initial panicked response to the blood that seemed to be _everywhere_ , and focused instead on breaking Quinn’s injuries down into things she could handle. “You’re lucky I know you well enough to not take this personally,” Quinn managed to say as she ripped open the blood soaked fabric of his shirt.

“You like that?” she asked distractedly, rummaging in the first aid kit for the bottle of alcohol and a pressure bandage. “You’re going to love this.” Undoing the cap as quickly as she could, she poured a liberal amount of the fiery liquid across his shoulder.

Quinn screamed, his fingers digging painfully hard into the meat of her thigh as he fought to keep from moving too much. Nat swallowed hard, trying to convince herself she didn’t hear an answering roar moving closer to their position.

The shoulder wound was easy enough to bandage. Once it was done, Nat shifted to deal with the abdominal wound and froze – her hand trembling as she held it inches above the bloody patch of ruined flesh. _Leave him. Leave him. Leave him._ The traitorous litany rang through her mind in time with the adrenaline fueled beat of her heart. If he was hurt as badly as she suspected she wasn’t necessarily doing him any favors trying to get him out of here. _One shot to the head._ Both Glocks were loaded; it would be a mercy.

 _You’re getting ahead of yourself._ Bracing herself, she leaned in close and smelled the lower wound. Under the metallic scent of the blood was a faint sour smell; her brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of it. The fact that she could smell anything at all hinted at his bowel being compromised, but the scent wasn’t as strong as it should have been if there had been any kind of actual perforation.

Finally, she sat back on her heels and tried to weigh her options. “Don’t sugar coat it Tash,” Quinn said, his voice shaky. “Blondie said we only had a five minute head start – how bad is it?”

She grimaced. “I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “I might be smelling something, but it just as easily could be suggestion at work.”

Her chest tightened at the calm acceptance that flooded into his pale eyes. “So best case scenario the second bullet’s nicked the bowel, I leave a blood trail that guarantees we’re caught and I die anyway.” He jerked his chin weakly in the direction of her guns. “Leave…leave me one of the Glocks and go.”

An agonized roar split the air before she could respond. Nat reacted immediately, grabbing up both weapons and aiming them in the direction of the sound. _Bruce…_

“I take it that’s what she’s sending after us?” Quinn asked.

Nat didn’t respond to him – she was too busy calculating ranges, distances, and how much time they likely had before the Hulk became a problem she had to deal with. _”I put a gun in my mouth, and the Other Guy spit out the bullet.”_ If Yelena had made him as crazed as Nat suspected, she was going to need a better plan than her guns by the time Bruce found them.

 _Think. This game is won with your brains._ She finally lowered her guns and tried to control her racing heartbeat. No matter her training or her determination, she wouldn’t be able to hold a steady aim forever. “I’m going to bind up the lower wound,” she told him, letting him see her determination.

He was already much too pale, the evidence of his weakness writ large on his face. The pressure bandage on his shoulder wound was already soaked through, and blood was starting to trace thin lines across his skin. “I think this is the point where I tell you to save yourself,” he said gently.

The Hulk roared again. Natasha flinched violently, pivoting to bring both guns to bear again on the trail behind them. _They tortured him. He won’t know you._ It was her worst nightmare being brought to full, terrifying, super-charged life, and for half a heartbeat she thought about taking Quinn at his word. _Clint would never forgive you._ Neither would Eliot, and Nat was startled to realize that she cared about what the other hitter thought of her. “Wrong,” she said, holstering the weapon in her dominant hand and turning back towards Quinn. “This is where we run.”

“Tash,” he protested, but she shook her head.

“I’m not leaving you to what they’ve unleashed on us, Jonah. No arguments.”


	3. Natasha Isn't the One You Need to Worry About Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl from Natasha's past is determined to revive the Soviet Red Room project - using the Avengers' greatest weapon to achieve her goal.

“This is insane,” Eliot said, keeping his voice low. “You know that, right?”

Clint’s eyes were on the swathe of ruined foliage that stretched out in front of them. The Hulk was moving much too fast for them to keep him in sight, but fortunately the Other Guy’s movements were anything but subtle. “Fastest way to find them,” he countered. “Petrovitch was fond of putting his recruits through training exercises. He called them games.” His stomach roiled at the perversion of the term, thinking of all the times Natasha had played them as a child.

“Oh let me guess,” Eliot snarked. “Turn the target loose in the woods and then sic the dogs on them?”

“Or a Hulk,” Clint agreed, gesturing at the devastation.

They continued on in silence for a while. It was an easy trail to follow; all they had to do was keep an eye out for anyone stationed to make sure the game unfolded as expected. Deep down, Clint was hoping they would get lucky enough to be able to take out a few of the bad guys along the way. Natasha had told him about the times two targets had been turned loose in the woods. “Self-preservation was the highest law. We were no good to Petrovitch if we couldn’t survive.”

In cases like these, one of the two would be injured and the other would be left with the means to provide them with just enough first aid to get them on their feet and moving. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to confirm that little twist for Eliot, because the odds that Natasha had been the one crippled were almost nonexistent.

From a purely tactical standpoint, the smart play would always be for the one who escaped injury to save herself. They’d been trying to change Natasha though – restore some of the empathy and concern for other people that had been no use to Petrovitch and his goals – and Clint was suddenly terrified that face with the threat of a half-mad Hulk who wouldn’t know her, Nat would try to save everyone and in the process lose everything.  
********************************  
Binding up Quinn’s lower wound took long enough that by the time Natasha felt even remotely comfortable getting him on his feet, they could both hear the Hulk crashing towards their position. “You need to go,” Quinn said again, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. “Dammit Nat, I’m not trying to be a martyr here, but this is suicide!”

A combination of adrenaline and blind panic helped Natasha haul him to his feet and steady him with a heavy arm across her shoulders. “If it’s suicide, then we go out together,” she told him, her expression fierce. “Until then, we run.”

There was no hope of them moving quietly, but no matter how much noise they made the Hulk was inevitably louder. The Hulk also tended to move in straight lines. Eventually Yelena’s people would catch up with him and redirected him at his targets, but Natasha was determined to do everything she could between this moment and that to win them the advantage they sorely needed.

Instinct drove Natasha to the west – the direction continued their move away from the base, and was perpendicular to her best estimate of the Hulk’s current trajectory through the forest. She had to assume they were being watched, but as long as no one tried to interfere she couldn’t allow Yelena’s people to be her primary concern.

Quinn’s collapse had been inevitable ever since Natasha had made the decision to drag him along with her; even so, when he finally went down it caught her entirely off guard. She tried to cushion his fall as much as she could, but the muffled sounds of pain he was making were like screams in her head.

Her gut reaction was to scramble back to her feet, drag Quinn up with her and force him on until…what? Eventually Yelena would get bored and demand that the game be change up in some way; either by forcing the Hulk at them again, or by sending her own people in to wear Natasha down and take Quinn out of play once and for all.

_This game is won with your brains._

She couldn’t trust luck or Eliot to save them – she had to figure out the way to do it herself. _And there is a way._ There was always a way to win, the only difference this time was that she had to figure out how to include Quinn in the equation.

“Tasha.”

She silenced him with fingers pressed gently to his lips and shook her head. “Not yet.” Her thoughts were turning in a direction she couldn’t afford, until she was certain Quinn understood she wasn’t going to abandon him.

“I have a plan,” she admitted, helping him sit up against the nearest tree and checking his bandages. “I’m going to see if I can get through to Dr. Banner.”

Quinn started to laugh, but the sound turned into a cough. Natasha pressed the heel of her hand against the pressure bandage covering his lower wound trying to give him some additional support, and had to give it up when she saw how much blood was squeezed out of the gauze. She skated her fingertips down one leg of his fatigues, and realized they were soaked with blood past the knee.

She tried to keep the accusation out of her expression as she looked into his eyes, but he already knew what was happening to him, and what it likely meant. “Not as stupid as I look, remember?”

Heart beating fast against her ribs, Nat tore open the first aid kit and pulled out the last pressure bandage. “I’m just going to tie this one on top of the other one,” she said. “Buy you as much time as I can.”

He didn’t resist as she went to work. “Did you ever think we’d end up working together like this?” he asked, his words faintly slurred now.

Nat snorted softly. “Most days I still don’t understand why I haven’t killed you yet.”

His blood-stained fingers closed over hers as she finished tying off the fresh bandage. “Remember the last time I tried to kiss you…”

She did remember, as vividly as if it had just happened. He’d been drinking with some mercenary friends in a bar in Malaysia, and they’d targeted her as a mark for their fun. She’d shined the first one on with a look. The second one had been quickly forced to his knees with an arm twisted painfully up behind his back. Quinn had moved in then – leading with a refill for her drink and calls on what history they shared up until that point to make it into the seat across from her.

If it had just been his impossible charm, Nat liked to tell herself she never would have allowed him as close as he’d gotten to her over the years. Quinn was the top of his field though, the best at what he did, and his personal code of honor often put him out of step with others of his kind. _Plus…_ He tugged on something inside of her. It wasn’t sexual for her – Nat had often wondered if she _could_ have brought her training to bear on Jonah Quinn.

No, it was deeper than that; a memory that predated her training, something that had been lost forever to the drugs and the conditioning and the death. It made her soft where he was concerned.

True, not so soft that she hadn’t knocked him on his ass when he’d hooked his hand behind her neck that night and half-dragged her across the table for a kiss. “We had an audience,” she reminded him. “Not my fault you were running with a pack of rabid hyenas that night.”

She’d intended to make him smile, but there was a shadow across his expression that made the joke fall flat. “Natasha.”

It broke something inside her, hearing him use her proper name like that. Her fears for him – that they could _both_ die here in these woods and the man whose heart they shared between them would never know what had happened – all of that swelled inside her until she felt like she would explode from the pressure of it all. “Don’t,” she whispered, her voice cracking hoarsely on the word. “Just…don’t.”

And before he could argue with her, she surged forward and kissed him. He inhaled sharply, momentarily caught off guard, but then his lips parted easily under hers. Nat immediately deepened the kiss, closing her eyes and letting the feel of his tongue against hers wash through her. Quinn’s fingers plunged into the tangle of her hair, holding onto her as best he could.

It was messy and desperate, the most human of contacts, and for a brief, precious moment Nat felt the rest of the world melt away.

There were tears in Quinn’s eyes when she finally broke off and pulled back to look at him, and the sight rocked Natasha to her core. All the years, all the things they’d shared, and she’d never seen him this raw. “Quinn…”

His fingers clenched convulsively in her hair, pulling her in until her forehead was pressed against his. “I don’t want to die, Tasha.” A small, choked sob escaped him as a shudder rippled through his broken body. “Not like this. Not when…” _Not when I’ve only just found somebody…_ hung unspoken in the air between them.

Nat cupped her own hand behind his head, letting him see nothing but determination in her eyes. “You’re not going to die, Jonah. I’m going to see you out of here, get you back to him – you have my word.” She tightened her grip. “You believe me, right?”

He blew out a shaky breath, then nodded. “I believe you. Tell me what to do.”  
*******************  
He was sorely tempted to shoot the soldiers that came after the Hulk with their cattle prods at the ready – heightening his rage and turning him towards the west. “They wouldn’t interfere like this unless he’d gotten off Quinn and Nat’s trail,” he explained to Eliot as his hand fell away from his bow. “He’s still our best chance to find them.”

“Shooting him’s not an option, right?” Eliot asked again. “I know he’s your friend and it’s not his fault, but…”

“Banner put a gun in his mouth once,” Clint said quietly as they resumed tailing the enraged creature. “Tried to end it all. Way he tells it, the gun shot triggered the change, and the Hulk spit out the bullet like it was a watermelon seed.”

“And you expect Nat to be able to face him down all on her own?” Confused, Clint turned to look at his companion, and saw Eliot holding up bloodstained fingers. “Quinn’s not the target in this,” Spencer said, his voice low and dangerous. “As such, I’m betting this is his blood.”

Clint’s chest ached at the sight, but he refused to flinch away from Eliot’s gaze. “I didn’t know for certain.”

“But you figured,” Eliot countered, a hint of anger in his voice now.

“Tell me you would have done anything differently had you known and I’ll apologize,” Clint said. “Otherwise we’re wasting time and energy they don’t have arguing about something I can’t change.”

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, then Eliot turned sharply and resumed walking after the Hulk. After another moment, Clint fell in step with him. Another two miles passed, with the only sound the roars and screams of the enraged Hulk, then Eliot asked, “How bad?”

Clint almost took the easy way out, asking for clarification in order to buy himself some time from having to answer. Eliot didn’t deserve the prevarication though, and neither did Quinn. “The intent is to cripple,” he said finally. “Either the victim is left behind to bleed out, or their injuries weaken them so much that dragging them along becomes a liability all on its own. That way the girls are effectively and brutally punished for showing compassion to another human being.

Eliot fell silent again. After another half mile he asked, “Did she ever tell you who the youngest survivor was?”

“She was,” Clint told him. “The first time she played at age nine.”  
*********************  
Every one of her baser instincts was screaming at her to run, justifying it as the tactically smart thing to do. Quinn had finally lost consciousness, along with the ability to even marginally protect himself from one of the Hulk’s rampages. It was all on her shoulders, but when she tried to move, tried to run, her resolve failed entirely. She couldn’t leave him, not even for his own good – Natasha knew she’d never be able to look Clint in the eyes again.

If a stand was going to be made, it was going to be made here. She strode to the edge of the clearing and waited.

Control was the beginning and the end for Natasha, and everything in between. Going back further than she could actively remember, it had been programmed into her DNA that she was never to lose control, ever. To lose control of a situation was to be defeated by it, to lose control of a person was to be betrayed by them – the rules that governed her life were simple and absolute.

Even after her awakening, after Clint and S.H.I.E.L.D. had opened her eyes to a different path, control remained at the heart of who and what Natasha Romanoff was. Now, in addition to all the nightmares that could be awakened by a slip in her command of a situation, other people – people she was coming to care very deeply for – ran the risk of being hurt or killed.

All of it together was why nothing terrified her more than the Hulk. He…it…whatever…represented the ultimate loss of control, and all the bloody devastation that would result. She honestly didn’t know how Banner had made his peace with it.

A horrible crack sounded through the forest; Nat saw a tree falling at the edge of her vision. The Hulk loped into view, no longer the enraged beast dredged up from her darkest nightmares, but still apparently more than willing to “smash” first and ask questions later. She had to find a way past all that raw chaos, to the truth underneath. Banner’s incredible brain, the mind that had Tony Stark following him around like some kind of lovesick school girl, was still in there; trapped by the rage that drove his deeper self to destroy everything in its path.

If she could reach the man beneath, maybe they would have a chance. Forcing back all of her fear and panic, Natasha drew in a breath and prepared to do the most foolhardy thing she’d ever done in her life.

“Bruce!”  
************************  
Both men pulled up short as Natasha’s call rang through the trees. “What the hell is she doing?” Eliot breathed. Clint had already broken into a run, trying to close what distance he could with the Hulk. He knew instantly what his partner was trying to do, and he was determined to be there to either back her play, or give them a much needed out if her insane gamble ended up going horribly wrong.

Hope sprang to sudden burning life in his chest as he realized the Hulk had finally stopped moving. He could see signs of a clearing beyond his teammate, but if Quinn and Natasha were there, they were being hidden by Bruce’s current bulk.

Grabbing Eliot by the shoulder, Clint signed that the hitter should make his way around to another side of the clearing. “Get to Quinn if you can,” he whispered, and Eliot nodded to show he understood. As soon as Spencer was on the move, Clint went for the nearest tree. Height and distance were his two advantages in a crisis, and he’d never needed them more than right this moment.

He was halfway to a decent perch when the Hulk bellowed and pounded both fists against the ground. Clint paused as the tree he was climbing swayed dangerously from the vibrations through the earth, but resumed climbing again as soon as it was safe. He didn’t dare look until he was settled and ready to act – whatever Natasha was dealing with below, he had to trust her to handle it for just a few minutes more.

“You’re not this person, Bruce. You can’t let them control you like this.”

Clint swung smoothly into position, unhooked his bow and set an arrow to the string. Below him, Natasha was toe to toe with the Hulk, one of her hands resting on his impossibly muscled forearm. “You know me, Bruce. You know Quinn. You don’t want to hurt us.”

He couldn’t see the Hulk’s expression clearly from his angle, until the monster threw back his head and howled. Natasha scrambled back a few feet, and Clint drew and aimed. “Don’t do it Bruce,” he muttered, focusing in on the sloping muscle that joined the Hulk’s neck to his shoulder. “Listen to her. Don’t let them turn you into this.” He didn’t know if he could kill the Hulk – didn’t know if anything could – but Clint was as sure as he was of anything in his life that at this distance he would do enough damage to turn all that rage right at him.

 _Totally okay with that,_ he thought, bracing himself against the trunk of the tree.

“Bruce, please.” Clint could hear the grief and the fear in his partner’s voice, and his heart broke. _I’m here Nat,_ he thought, willing her to feel his presence. _I’ve got your back. It’s not all on you anymore._ He wanted her to step off, give him a chance to move in and help her talk Bruce down, but he couldn’t risk startling the Hulk after everything he’d been put through.

“You know me,” Nat repeated. “You don’t want to do this.”

The Hulk raised a massive hand. Clint stopped breathing for a split second, and nearly released his hold on the bowstring. He could see Nat trembling, but she held her ground. Her determination was rewarded a moment later, when the Hulk gently stroked her hair. “Natasha…” The deep, rumbling voice seemed to vibrate through her – Clint saw the flash of tears on her cheeks as she closed her eyes.

He’d never seen the change in reverse. Even as the Hulk carefully drew his arm back, his body was already starting to shrink – almost collapsing in on itself as he reverted back to his human form. Clint glanced at his partner; Natasha’s eyes were open again, and he could see her starting to emotionally unravel. “You did it,” he breathed, relaxing his draw and lowering his arrow at least. “You did it. You brought him back.”

Before he could find his full voice, to let her know that he was here, the crack of multiple rifle shots tore through the trees all around them. Nat threw herself forward and down, shielding the now unconscious Bruce with her body. Clint shifted automatically, found himself a target, drew and fired. He had another arrow on the string and was searching for another target before the first one hit home.  
*************************  
Natasha had seen Eliot moving into the clearing as she squared off with the Hulk. Knowing that he was there, that somebody would look out for Quinn if her plan didn’t work, had given her the courage to continue – to look into the monster’s eyes and reach out to the man underneath.

It wasn’t until Bruce had started to change back and Yelena’s forces had opened fire that Natasha realized she was hearing the familiar and comforting sound of Clint above her head – firing into the ranks of the enemy. “You found us. You came.” Eliot’s arrival had relieved some of her worry. Knowing that Clint was here, that he was watching out for her, made it possible for her hold off the meltdown that had nearly finished her as she talked Bruce back to himself.

Pushing up to her knees, she drew her pistols and joined the fight. Every shot found a target, and every target dropped; some of them with an arrow as well as a bullet to show for their troubles. “How many?” she called out, as the bullets in her clips began to dwindle.

“Too many,” Clint called back. “You ready for a refill?”

Hardly daring to hope, she replied, “Hit me.” On cue, two full clips dropped into the dirt in front of her. Grinning like a madwoman, she reloaded in record time, and continued firing. “Missed you,” she called to him.

“Likewise,” came the answer.

“Eliot?” Natasha called after a second.

“Yo!”

“How are we doing back there?”

“Running out of ammo and time,” Spencer replied. “Clint – ETA on our ride out?”

There was a moment of relative silence, then Clint responded. “They’re touching down now, with two full squadrons.

Natasha could have happily kissed them both.  
********************  
With S.H.I.E.L.D. finally on the ground, it was over in a matter of minutes. Nat stayed close to Bruce, watching over the unconscious man until Tony Stark came up to them. The faceplate on his armor was up, and she could see the concern in his eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them from hurting him,” was all Nat could find it in her to say.

When Tony looked at her, a small, sad smile was on his lips. “You have nothing to apologize for,” he said. He glanced significantly at Banner, who was now being lifted onto a stretcher. “He’s going to tell you the same.”

Clint joined them then, his weapons stowed, and his eyes filled with worry. After a brief exchange with Tony, in which Natasha learned that all of Yelena’s forces in the area had been taken into custody, Stark followed the medics who were preparing to transport Banner to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. “Belova’s followers are going to be turned over to the Russian government for their trials,” Clint said, looking down at her.

Head still spinning from everything that had happened, all Natasha could say was, “You came.”

Exhaling softly, Clint pulled her into a tight embrace. “I should have been here from the beginning.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t.

Pulling back, Natasha looked up into his eyes. “Have you seen him?”

Clint looked stricken. “Eliot’s with him. The medics are trying to stabilize him before they load him for transport. Nat…” She saw his throat muscles work as he swallowed hard. “How bad is the gut shot?”

She took his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Come on.”  
*****************  
As they crossed the clearing to where the medics were working on Quinn, they passed where Yelena was being held. The blonde was on her knees, guarded by half a dozen of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s best people with weapons at the ready. Cap was talking with the squadron leader in low tones.

Nat had slowed to a stop; Clint looked at her and saw a mixture of emotions – chief among them hate. “Natasha come on…forget about her.”

After a long, frozen moment, Yelena glanced up at them. “Weak,” she spat, her beautiful face twisted with hate. “I saw you beg, Natashka – saw you beg the Hulk for your life. You are less than nothing.”

Clint knew immediately what his partner was going to do, and before she could take more than a step in the prisoner’s direction, he slipped his arms around her waist; steadying her against him. “Please. I need you, Nat. If Quinn…” He broke off – unable to say the words, but he felt her relax immediately. She knew what he was afraid of.

“I will be making a full report to Director Fury,” she said, looking at Captain America. “She won’t be given a second chance like I was. I won’t allow it.” Cap’s eyes widened under his mask, but he nodded. Seemingly satisfied, Nat pulled free of Clint’s hold and continued on to where Quinn and Eliot were.

“I am not afraid of her threats,” Yelena snarled, her blue eyes meeting Clint’s. “They mean less than a mongrel barking in the street.”

Time slipped – Clint didn’t realize he was moving towards Belova, until Rogers put a hand on his chest stopping him in his tracks. “It’s not worth it, Barton.”

He let himself be held back, but Clint felt his insides turn to ice as he looked down on the kneeling captive. “You don’t get it,” he said. “You brutalized people I care about. Natasha isn’t the one you need to worry about here.”  
*****************  
Bruce Banner was fully recovered from their ordeal within twenty-four hours, but he submitted to every test the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics asked for without complaint. “I need to know what Yelena’s people fed me,” he admitted to Natasha when she stopped in to check on him. “If there’s a chance it could really control the Other Guy…”

“I think your control is magnificent,” Nat admitted. “Better than I ever suspected, actually.”

Caught off guard by the compliment, Bruce smiled shyly, ducking his head. “I know I scare you, Agent Romanoff. I wish there was some way…”

Acting entirely on impulse, Natasha took his hand in hers. “It’s not your issue, Doctor. Or your responsibility.”

Their eyes met, and she felt an unexpected pleasurable warmth well up inside her. “I still wish things could be different.”  
*******************  
Quinn hadn’t regained consciousness. It took nearly two hours for the medics in the field to stabilize him enough to transport him to the helicarrier. Upon landing he was immediately rushed to surgery and from there into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intensive care unit.

At that point it became a waiting game, and the medical staff quickly learned not to argue with Clint’s presence. He privately suspected Fury had had a word with them as well, but by the time the third day dawned with no appreciable change or improvement in Quinn’s condition, he realized he was well past caring or feeling obligated for the concessions he was granted. He was just grateful Quinn was getting the best care available, and that he didn’t have to endure the waiting alone.

The times they were able to pry him away from Quinn’s bedside, he spent wrapped around Natasha, drawing strength from her presence and her reasoned assurances that if Quinn had survived this far, recovery was almost a certainty. Eliot was almost always hovering somewhere nearby, having been given temporary VIP status by Fury, but if he blamed himself anywhere near as much as Clint did for how things had played out, there was no sign.

“Blaming yourself is stupid. You know that, right?” Bruce was the one who finally said what Clint suspected the others had been thinking. “You couldn’t have predicted this – none of us could.”

They were in the waiting room outside the ICU. Quinn’s doctors were inside, doing things they would still only reluctantly tell Clint about in any detail – he’d argued with the lead doctor on the case that morning, and something inside him had curled up and died when the woman pointed out that in a civilian hospital he would have had no legal standing to know anything about Quinn’s medical history or progress. Frustration set him pacing like a caged animal; the irony of his position destroying all of the patience and calm that made him one of the best snipers in the world.

“Nat’s my partner,” he said finally. “I should have been backing her up on this, not Quinn.” It’s the heart of what’s been driving him, but Banner was unimpressed with his argument.

“So what you’re saying is that you’d rather it was Quinn out here wondering if you were going to live or die?”

“What?” The question stopped Clint in his tracks. “No – of course not. I…”

“It wouldn’t have ended any differently.” Startled, Clint whirled to see that Nat had returned, carrying two cups from the mess hall. “I told you that.” He didn’t miss her silent rebuke that he hadn’t really listened to her at the time.

“You love him,” Bruce added, getting to his feet. “There’s no shame in that, and there’s no shame in being scared that you’re going to lose him before everything you’re starting to let yourself believe in can happen.”

Clint realized with a start that he was shaking - with grief or rage, he’d long passed being able to tell the difference anymore. “I just hate feeling so fucking helpless.” He clenched his hands into fists and tried desperately to bring himself back under control.

“You need to get used to that feeling,” Bruce said, stepping closer to him. Nat set their drinks down and also closed the distance separating them. “As long as you two are together, one or the other of you is going to be dealing with this.” He sighed. “Maybe you also need to figure out if you’re up to the challenge.”

It was a sobering statement, one Clint desperately wished Bruce had been able to spare him, but when he looked to Nat for reassurance he saw a similarly grave expression. “I believe you are,” she said, reaching up to brush fingertips across his cheek, “but I’m not the one who has to live with your decision.”

He finally looked to Eliot, who had been silently watching the exchange. “He does love you,” Spencer said. “If you’re not strong enough to love him back in the same way though, maybe better to end it now.”

Clint wanted to defend himself and his feelings, but every argument died his throat when one of Quinn’s doctors appeared in the doorway.

“He’s awake.”  
****************  
Clint was barely two steps into the room when one of the other doctors caught him by the arm and pulled him up short. “Five minutes, no more,” he warned. Clint started to pull free, but something in the man’s eyes stilled the panic in his soul.

“You need to understand how close we came to losing him,” the doctor went on, speaking in a low voice, “and how many times. Agent, there is no reason that man over there should be alive, and I will not let you jeopardize whatever miracle we’ve been granted. The next twenty-four hours are crucial. Do we understand each other?”

Clint nodded. After another moment, the doctor let him go and stepped back.

“Have you been causing trouble?” Medical personnel were still clearing out of the tiny space, but as far as Clint was concerned the only other person in the world was the man propped up in the bed looking at him.

“You know me,” Clint said breathlessly, rushing forward to the bedside. Reaching out a shaking hand, he covered Quinn’s hand with his own. “Good to see you.”

Quinn’s smile was faint, but genuine. “You mean when I’m not bleeding out on a forest floor half a world away?” He turned his hand, wrapping his fingers around Clint’s hand.

“Yeah, Clint said, and his voice broke. “Something like that.” His vision was starting to blur, and he knew he probably looked like an idiot the way he was staring, but it was suddenly the most important thing in the world that he memorize every inch of what Quinn looked like. “You scared me, you know.”

“I scared me too,” Quinn admitted. “The kind of jobs I do don’t usually end up like this.” He swallowed hard. “Clint…”

He had no idea what Quinn was about to say, and Clint suddenly realized he didn’t care. “You’re going to get better,” he said fiercely, as the tears finally broke free and spilled down his cheeks. “You’re going to get better, because I’m not ready to lose you.” He paused, leaning in closer. “I _can’t_ lose you, Quinn. You have to know that. You have to believe me.”

Clint knew he was finally starting to come apart under the stress of everything that happened, but everything abruptly stabilized when Quinn said quietly, “I do believe you, Clint.”

Relieved beyond words, Clint leaned in and kissed him.


End file.
